DoD Awards $70M for Digital Manufacturing Open Research Lab

As part of President Obama's promise to invest in innovation in American manufacturing, the US Department of Defense has awarded Chicago-based UI Labs $70 million to open the Digital Lab for Manufacturing, a research and commercialization institution for the development of new processes and strategies to promote digital manufacturing.

Obama made the announcement Tuesday in an event at the White House, where he was joined by technology and manufacturing industry leaders who have come together on the project. The move is part of the administration's goal -- mentioned in Obama's State of the Union address last month -- to promote economic development, and the creation of jobs and innovation through its support of digital manufacturing.

The president on Tuesday also unveiled two other efforts to promote innovation in manufacturing -- a Detroit area-based lab with a focus on the use of lightweight and modern metals called the Lightweight and Modern Metals Manufacturing Innovation Institute, and a competition to develop a new institute to focus on research in advanced composites.

All of the efforts are part of the administration's push to promote US manufacturing, which has been steadily losing business over the last several years to offshore ventures where labor and facilities are less expensive and more productive.
The administration is pinning its hopes in American manufacturing on some of the innovations in which the industry already is making investments.

Digital manufacturing, which uses an integrated, computer-based system comprised of simulation 3D visualization, analytics, and various collaboration tools to create product and manufacturing process definitions simultaneously, is a key focus among the new efforts. Additive manufacturing -- more commonly known as 3D printing -- the use of lighter, composite materials alongside more traditional materials, and advanced robotic automation are among some of the new technologies and processes being used in digital manufacturing.

These technologies are creating more efficiency, cutting costs, and allowing for the development of better products, but they are still generally in their early stages of use. While the manufacturing industry and other researchers have been developing processes to integrate them into the manufacturing industry, more focus is needed,
Siemens PLM Software CEO Chuck Grindstaff told Design News.

"We want to make making sure the companies that do want to work on these advanced processes can do so effectively," he told us. "We want to take the best and brightest processes for the future and to make sure our companies are working together to apply these processes to be most effective."

Being from Chicago I can understand President Obama's desire to fund a lab here. What I fear is teh teh "Chicago Way" will drain the lab of its resources and not have anything to show for it. I think a better location, such as a university town, would have a better chance of producing results.

Thank you for your comment, SALMON. The model you mention does seem to be the way things work in the United States. There is a lot of innovation and research that comes from government-funded activities and out of universities, and then researchers--once they have a solid prototype--seek commercialization through companies, whether private or public companies. The new lab will work in this way as well. If you are familiar with the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany, it will be a similar model to that institution.

We in Europe are following with interest and admiration the efforts to improove manifacturing activities in USA.

I am personaly courious to know whot "open" really means: will the results freely avialable, or the results will be offered to the market for a proce ?

I have just red the book from Mazucato , and american.italian resarcher, that affirm that the base for innovation in USA derive from public, state funded, researche activity and the privet compamy are only assembling, packagin, selling the new product ( and avoiding USA tax !).

Industrial workplaces are governed by OSHA rules, but this isn’t to say that rules are always followed. While injuries happen on production floors for a variety of reasons, of the top 10 OSHA rules that are most often ignored in industrial settings, two directly involve machine design: lockout/tagout procedures (LO/TO) and machine guarding.

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